


Game Over (Or Maybe Just Leveling Up)

by baeconandeggs, moreoverreader



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: BAE2017, M/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 08:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10918497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeconandeggs/pseuds/baeconandeggs, https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreoverreader/pseuds/moreoverreader
Summary: Chanyeol and Baekhyun have always been buddies, bonding over video games. However, when Baekhyun includes Kyungsoo in their group, he never expected to turn jealous of the boy for stealing the attention of his best friend.





	Game Over (Or Maybe Just Leveling Up)

**Author's Note:**

> Author: anonymous  
> Prompt#: 274  
> Title: Game over (or maybe just leveling up)  
> Word Count: 17847  
> Side Pairing(s): kaisoo, krisho  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Warning(s):idk swearing? Nothing really triggering  
> Disclaimer: The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families, or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended. 
> 
> Author's Note: It’s my first fic ever, and also the first time I take part in an exchange, so I hope I did it right ^^ I have next to no knowledge about video games - I’m not sure why I took this exact fic - so I’m sorry if something is off XD I’m really thankful to the best Beta in the whole world (actually my only one, but you’re still the best, remember that ❤ ) for staying with me when I haven’t written anything for a long time, for coming up with the amazing title and ofc adding great part of the most important scene in the fic (idk why you said that you cannot suggest new ideas – I’m waiting for your own fic next year ^^ )  
> I hope everyone has fun reading this!

Baekhyun tosses his school bag in the hallway as soon as he gets home from school and leaves to quickly run to the house across the street and let himself in. He takes his shoes off and goes for the jacket when he sees Chanyeol coming out of the kitchen on the left, one hand holding his precious Nutella jar and the other keeping a spoon still in his mouth.

"How many times do I have to tell you that Nutella has been created to be eaten on sandwich?" Baekhyun hangs his jacket on the hanger.

"And how many times do I have to tell you there's no fun eating it that way? The taste of bread ruins all the joy." Chanyeol walks to the living room followed by his friend.

Baekhyun had to wait the whole week to see Chanyeol since the Park family was visiting Grandpa. He lives really far away and they can't see him often so they decided to spend there the whole week to catch up a little. Baekhyun loved it when Grandpa Park came here last time a few years prior. He was telling them stories which could either be true or totally made up, but nobody cared since all of them were hella entertaining. He hopes the elder comes visit again soon.

"Wouldn't you have problems since you missed the whole first week of school?" Baekhyun sits comfortably on the couch and Chanyeol plops next to him, laying his too long legs on the other's lap.

"Nah, my friends will tell me if there's anything important and since we're Seniors now it's not like I have to learn how to get to my class or whatever." Chanyeol puts the spoon into the jar in his hand and scoops out a whole lot of Nutella. He then uses it to point at Baekhyun. "Now tell me everything that happened at your school this first week"

Baekhyun and Chanyeol have known each other since forever but up until Elementary School they were nothing more than two kids that were the same age, living on the same street, and attending the same school. Things have changed when they found out they were both into video games. They became inseparable bonding over the fact that nobody stood a chance against either one of them in Mario Kart, but in High School both Park and Byun’s parents went haywire making them go to their older sibling's alma mater so the best of friends were left attending schools which are as far away from each other as they possibly can. Baekhyun and Chanyeol had to think of a way to maintain their friendship and concluded texting at school can be forgiven for such a noble cause. And, of course, meeting after class for a round or ten of their favorite games.

"Not much is different, I think. It’s the same old hell as it was last year." Baekhyun shrugs but then he turns to his friend when he remembers something that could be interesting to his friend. "Well, there's a new guy in my class"

"Oh?" Chanyeol looks at him curiously, "Did you have time to talk to him?"

"Yeah, in fact we talked a lot since A SPECIAL SOMEONE WASN'T TEXTING ME BACK" Baekhyun looks his neighbor right in the eye.

"Hey, come on, you know my Grandpa hates the new technology" Chanyeol pokes his finger at his friend. "He made us turn the phones off and play card games or talk with him which is, of course, what we went there for in the first place and don't get me wrong, I love Grandpa but that way I couldn't feed my Internet addiction which made the trip close to a living hell!" Chanyeol almost shouts the last part.

Baekhyun pouts at those words faking sadness.

"I was hoping you'd say you couldn't get your daily dose of Byun Baekhyun because of Grandpa's requests."

"I thought it was too obvious to even mention it" Chanyeol grins and flicks him on the forehead. He then rests comfortably on the armrest and resumes eating from the jar, "Now tell me about your new best friend, I'm extremely bored and wouldn't mind a little gossip."

Baekhyun is more than happy to do so, "Okay, so Kyungsoo is a year younger than us but he skipped a grade in Elementary School and he’s a straight “A” student as I heard from one of the girls in my class who used to be his classmate.” He says in one breath.

“Sounds like a nerd” Both of them are rather average students so the confusion seen on Chanyeol’s face, as to why Baekhyun is this friendly with such guy, seems legit.

“At first I thought that too because he came to school wearing white shirt and a tie, Chanyeol, A TIE” Baekhyun shivers slightly, seeing the scene again in his head as if it was happening right before his eyes, still not believing what he saw. “I mean, it was the first day of school but nobody took that seriously and dressed like any other day. But then he sat next to me, since it was the only unoccupied seat, and we just started talking. Turns out he has some normal hobbies, which are not as nerdy as collecting beetles or doing crosswords in between lessons, as one could think.” Baekhyun almost claps his hands in excitement.

“And what can possibly be this interesting about his hobbies?” Chanyeol tilts his head; confusion not leaving his face since the moment Baekhyun started his story.

The smaller one smiles like a Cheshire cat, “Well, he might or might have not said something about visiting a game shop after school because he run out of games to play.”

Chanyeol stared at him; his eyes looking bigger than usual. “You’re kidding, right? The nerdy one playing video games?” He chuckled. “So, what kind of games does he play?”

“He likes all types of the fantasy ones but his favorite game ever is-” Baekhyun leans closer to Chanyeol so he is able to tell him the best part in a stage whisper “-Mario Kart”.

That makes the taller one start to laugh his head off.

“We should challenge him some time in the future!” Chanyeol says after some time of trying to contain his laughter.

"Yeah, I thought so too!" Baekhyun nods eagerly. “Let’s invite him over one day! Maybe he’s not that bad and we can have another opponent since we already know everything there is to know about our own tactics”

“Sure, it’s a nice idea. Tell him about that first thing on Monday.” Chanyeol giggles seeing his friend’s excitement.

“I definitely will!” Baekhyun grins while still nodding his head eagerly, so he looks like a car window toy. Chanyeol burst into laughter, but contains it quickly, not wanting the momentary innocence on Baek's face to disappear.

“Okay, so now let’s play some games. I haven’t crushed you in anything for quite a long time” Chanyeol says as he removes his legs from Baekhyun’s and puts them on the floor. He reaches for the controllers on the coffee table and gives one to his friend.

Baekhyun smiles at that and leans back on the couch telling himself not to give up until Chanyeol is laying on his extremely fluffy carpet on the living room floor, begging for mercy.

  
  
  
  


The weekend ended way too quickly for Baekhyun’s liking and the next thing he knows he’s sitting at his place in the classroom. He lays his head on the desk and tries to get a quick nap in before the lesson starts. _Do I really need education?_ is the only thought on his mind, the usual Monday one.

Suddenly, he hears a loud thump as someone puts a bag on the desk next to him and sits on the chair. Baekhyun turns his head towards this person but still doesn’t raise it from the table. He sees Kyungsoo who smiles slightly at him in a greeting and goes back to reading a textbook. _Are we having some test today?_ It’s too early for Baekhyun to think about education so he really couldn’t care less.

He closes his eyes again but then he remembers he was supposed to talk to Kyungsoo about meeting at Chanyeol’s. He sighs and without opening his eyes he asks his classmate “Are you free today after school?”

He doesn’t get an answer so he pops one eye open to look at Kyungsoo, who seems to be too absorbed in the Math’s world to hear anything around him. Baekhyun reaches out to tug at his shirt; he hates being ignored. Kyungsoo turns to him with questioning look.

“Do you have anything planned after classes?” Baekhyun asks again.

“Not that I’m aware of. Why?” Kyungsoo lets the textbook close, meaning he has his full attention on the boy next to him.

“Do you wanna go with me to my friend’s house? We always play games at his place after school and we thought you could be the fresh blood to our duo.” Baekhyun grins.

Kyungsoo looks thoughtful but then he smirks and nods, “Why not, I’ll show you two how to play like a master”

Baekhyun laughs at those words. “Yeah, right, whatever floats your boat”

\-----------------------------------

Baekhyun and Kyungsoo leave the school as soon as the last bell rings. They get on the bus to get to the former’s neighborhood and then they walk the small distance from the bus stop to Chanyeol’s house.

While they’re walking, Baekhyun points to his own house in the distance.

“I live right across the street from Chanyeol. He and I have known each other since Elementary School and we always play games at his place because his parents are away more often than mine. You know, nobody wants to hear any nagging while trying to beat the records.” Baekhyun laughed lightly, “My mum would always come get me as soon as she got home from work since I could spend there the whole afternoon and not even look at my homework.” The older boy looks at his new friend and smiles. “Not that much has changed.”

They reach Chanyeol’s porch and Baekhyun goes first to open the door. They enter the house; Baekhyun shouting “Yeol, we’re here!” cue the head of brown curls to pop up from the living room, soon followed by the rest of Chanyeol’s body.

Chanyeol tilts his head slightly, making Baekhyun squeal internally. He now resembles a curious puppy and Baekhyun just loves puppies.

Pointing at his classmate who’s currently standing hesitantly behind him, Baekhyun starts the introduction.

“Chanyeol, this is Kyungsoo; he’s a self-proclaimed video games master so I brought him here to prove him wrong.” He then turns and points at his best friend. “Kyungsoo, this is Chanyeol; the other half of our tol and smol duet and my longtime partner in crime”

They nod their heads at each other and share light smiles, which Baekhyun concludes to be okay for a first meeting. Chanyeol has always been shy around people he doesn’t know well but he’ll be just fine in a while when he talks a little to Kyungsoo. Baekhyun is going to make sure about that.

Chanyeol tells them to go to the living room and prepare the ‘battlefield’, while he gets snacks and drinks from the kitchen. He takes a lot of them since, while he’s not sure about Kyungsoo yet, but after so many years of friendship with Baek, he is aware that one package of crisps and a bottle of soda is never enough. He honestly doesn’t understand how a person that small can eat so much but that’s just Baekhyun for you.

He leaves the kitchen and follows the chatter to the living room. He joins the two talking guys on the couch, taking the place next to Baekhyun, who sits in the middle, with Kyungsoo on his other side. The TV is already on and the two controllers are plugged in, waiting patiently on the coffee table. Chanyeol gives all the snacks to his friend, knowing well it’s better to let him decide what they’re gonna eat first, rather than hear him whining for the next hour or so. Baekhyun goes for the chocolate cookies first and pours everyone some apple juice.

Chanyeol takes the controllers and silently offers one to Kyungsoo. He doesn’t want the new boy to feel uncomfortable playing with him just yet, since they’ve know each other for like 5 minutes, so he gives the other one to Baekhyun. He looks at the now half empty pack of cookies on Baek’s lap and quickly takes it from him, knowing well that otherwise he’d have to open the new pack really, really soon. How can his friend be so slim since his sweet tooth makes him eat everything within his reach, Chanyeol will never find out.

“So Kyungsoo, what do you like to do in your free time? Other than playing video games, of course.” Baekhyun laughs a little, trying to start the conversation, so both of his friends could relax. He opens the new game file and logs both of them in.

"As I already told you - " Kyungsoo puts pressure onto these words. " - it's reading and video games."

 _Okay, he's not one for a small talk_ , Baekhyun thinks, but he’s not gonna give up just yet.

"Well, Chanyeol likes reading too!"

His tall friend turns to him with a questioning look.

"I read comics, not books" He says quietly.

"That's not important! Reading is reading!" Baekhyun is determined to make them friendly with each other.

"Sometimes I read comics, too." Kyungsoo says after a moment and Baekhyun dances internally at that.

"Really? What kind of comics do you read?" Chanyeol seems to be opening up, as they are at one of his favorite topics. He can't talk about it with Baekhyun because the smaller one detests reading in general.

"I like all the superhero ones, like Marvel and so on" Kyungsoo says, as he steers his character in the game, trying to destroy Baekhyun's one.

Chanyeol is awed by his words and leans on his knees to look at the new guy, since Baekhyun sitting in the middle is blocking him the view.

"Hey, I read Marvel too!" The giant smiles his all-teeth smile. Kyungsoo looks away from the TV for a moment to cast him a glance, but quickly returns to the game, though this time with slight blush on his cheeks, as Baekhyun notices with a smile.

His plan might be going better than he expected. He leans back on the couch and focuses on the game to let the other two talk.

Chanyeol is hyped, having found his comic soulmate, "Do you have your favorite superhero? Mine is Iron Man but the others are cool too."

There's a smirk on Kyungsoo's lips when he says, "I like Loki the best"

Chanyeol stills, he turns to face Kyungsoo and looks at him with his eyes opened wider than usual.

"You like - " He whispers. He cannot comprehend the news. Then something clicks in his mind and Chanyeol's face turns in outrage. "OH MY GOD, YOU'RE EVIL!"

Both Kyungsoo and Baekhyun, who couldn't sit still anymore, start to laugh at Chanyeol.

"Yeah, you could say so." Kyungsoo agrees with Chanyeol with a slight smile and returns to the game, which Baekhyun fortunately paused before they burst into laughter.

"Many people would agree with you, Yeol. Kyungsoo has already got a nickname at school and it's 'Satansoo'." Baekhyun decides to inform his shocked friend. "But they didn't name him like that because of his superhero choices, I can assure you"

"So why is that?" Chanyeol can see normally quiet Kyungsoo almost dying on the other side of the couch, as he tries to contain his laughter.

"I don't like when random people come and try to talk with me so I don't usually answer them." Kyungsoo just shrugs as he focuses back on the game.

"Yeah, right, if it was only because of that, you'd be called 'Silentsoo' or something" Baekhyun scoffs at Kyungsoo's explanation. "It's because of the way you look at them, which practically sends them running away. Some people say you're the embodiment of Satan and that you could kill with your death glare."

Kyungsoo shrugs again and smiles since he's completely self-aware. He's rather content with such reputation. "At least there will be fewer people to bother me in the future"

"Maybe, but you won't feel it, because I will be there and I'm not afraid of you and I will annoy you even more now." Baekhyun says in one breath and smirks.

Kyungsoo gives him a dirty look and goes back to their game.

"You never told me any of this!" Chanyeol is not sure what to feel at this moment: be angry at Baekhyun or terrified of Kyungsoo. For now, he decides to hide behind his best friend for fear of getting that infamous glare from the other guy.

However, the luck is not on his side today, because right that second Baekhyun loses the game and frustratingly pushes the controller into Chanyeol’s hands, "Okay listen, we cannot let him live after this. Destroy him, Yeol."

They can both see an evil smile on Kyungsoo's face when he says that.

As Chanyeol turns to look at Baekhyun in panic, the smaller simply points at the screen "Come on, Yeol! He can't just get away with such thing!"

After that Chanyeol has no other option than to choose the new game file and log both of them in, despite how scared he is.

Kyungsoo starts playing without a word but there's still a reminder of that smirk seen on his face, which terrifies Chanyeol even more. _What happened to that hesitant, quiet guy who was here not long ago?_ Chanyeol definitely gets the point of the whole 'Satansoo' situation.

\-----------------------------------

After a lot of shouting from Baekhyun's side, swearing from Chanyeol's and total silence from Kyungsoo, the result is 2:0 for the Satan himself. Baekhyun sits there quietly and stares at the screen where the big red letters forming "YEOL LOSES, SOO WINS" practically laugh at him.

Chanyeol looks at the floor in silence. He is on the verge of crying, because as much as he loves competition, he also feels really tired, both physically and mentally after being put in such stressful situation. Meanwhile, Kyungsoo's just sipping on his drink while eating cookies, which Baekhyun is no longer in the mood for. He shows no emotions but Chanyeol sure as hell (which is where his guest came from) knows that he’s laughing at both of them internally.

Still staring at the screen, Baekhyun whispers "You crushed us"

"Yes, I did", comes from emotionless Kyungsoo.

"But I thought - " Baekhyun swallows " - I thought you were exaggerating with that 'video games master' thing"

"Nope" Kyungsoo says, leaning back on the couch. "I won some competitions here and there"

Baekhyun gives up.

"I don't wanna say that but I feel like I have no choice." He takes a big breath and releases it slowly. "I underestimated you" He turns to Chanyeol. "Can you actually believe that?"

Chanyeol shakes his head and says nothing.

"All those years of practice were for nothing" Baekhyun whines and rests his head on his knees, being an over-dramatic diva as always.

Kyungsoo smiles slightly. It's not that evil smirk anymore, and that makes Chanyeol feel a little more at peace.

"I don't usually play with other people, so I had more time to practice by myself." Kyungsoo shrugs.

Baekhyun sits straight at that and looks at him with big eyes. "You can play with us! Right, Yeol?" He turns to his tall friend. "He can come here and play? Right?"

Baekhyun looks at him with such hopeful eyes that Chanyeol wouldn't really be able to refuse, even if he wanted to. "Sure, why not?"

"Yes!" Baekhyun throws his hands in the air. Chanyeol laughs and shakes his head at his small friend. _God, sometimes he's such a child._

\-----------------------------------

The three of them decided to play some other games to chill out a bit after the previous battle. This one is slightly less stressful and they have a lot of fun, but of course there are moments which make them call each other names and curse the opponent under their breaths.

After a few hours, however, Kyungsoo’s mom calls to ask if he was coming home for dinner. None of the guys were aware that it was already that late. They turn off the game and go to the door where Kyungsoo puts his shoes on and gets his backpack. He looks at Baekhyun, who shows no signs of leaving.

“You’re not going home?”

Baekhyun shakes his head. “No, I’m staying here for dinner.”

Chanyeol turns to look at him with dumbfounded look on his face. “You are?”

“I am.” Baekhyun just nods.

Chanyeol shrugs. “I guess you are staying for dinner.”

“I thought so too.” Baekhyun looks at Kyungsoo. “Chanyeol is an excellent cook, next time you have to stay and try for yourself.”

The tall one blushes at the compliment but says nothing.

Kyungsoo looks between them with amusement and nods, deciding it’s his cue. He bids them goodbye and leaves.

When the door closes Baekhyun turns to Chanyeol with a grin.

“So? What do you think?” He asks excitedly.

“About what?” Chanyeol feels confusion but is also amused. It’s so Baekhyun to think everyone always gets what he means.

“About Kyungsoo, you idiot!” Baekhyun his hands up in frustration. “He’s cool, right?”

Chanyeol rubs his neck and shrugs, “Yeah, at least those times when he’s not scary as hell, I think.”

Baekhyun laughs. “I know what you mean. He can be terrifying when he wants to be. And I’m aware I know him barely for a week, but I kind of got used to that. He’s okay when you get to know him better.” He smiles a little and then he turns to go to the kitchen. “Okay, I want to eat now. I’m starving. What are you gonna cook me today?”

Chanyeol rolls his eyes at him which Baekhyun is obviously not aware of, since he’s already rummaging through the fridge. The small one takes out pepperoni, and cheese. He puts the food onto the counter and points at it, turning to Chanyeol.

“Make me a pizza.”

The giant laughs at his tone but obediently starts looking for other ingredients.

“Your wish is my command.”

  
  
  
  


“Chanyeol, you won’t believe what I have!” Baekhyun shouts as soon as he opens the door to Chanyeol’s house the next Saturday.

However, the first person he sees is definitely not his tall friend – it’s his mom instead who comes out of the kitchen.

“Hello, Baekhyun. Nice to see you so early in the morning. It’s not even 9 o’clock yet.”

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Park. Is Chanyeol up yet? I just really want to show him something.” Baekhyun smiles his best smile as he hides this special something behind his back, trying to contain the excitement but with no effect.

Mrs. Park laughs at that and gestures for him to go upstairs.

“He went to sleep quite late last night so he’s probably still in bed. Since you're here, go wake him up, would you? Tell him that breakfast is in the kitchen so he must be quick while it's still warm and also that I’m leaving for work. Bye, Baekhyun.” She ruffles his hair and leaves the house.

Baekhyun kicks his shoes off and rushes to the stairs. He bursts the door to Chanyeol’s room open, shouts “RISE AND SHINE, SLEEPYHEAD” and, as he sees a head of brown curls hiding quickly under the blankets, he proceeds to climb on the bed to wake the tall one up. However, after a while he gives up trying to pull the covers off Chanyeol; his friend is simply much stronger than him.

“Yeol, come on!” Baekhyun whines and sits cross-legged at the foot of the bed, placing the surprise behind him. He clings to Chanyeol's leg and shakes it constantly to annoy the sleeping one. “You have to see this!”

There’s a moment of silence but then Baekhyun hears a quiet sigh. Next thing he sees is Chanyeol pulling down the blankets to uncover his head.

“You woke me up so it’d better be good or else you’re dead.” Chanyeol murmurs into his pillow glaring at his small friend. If looks could kill…

It’s the only invitation Baekhyun needs. He lets go of his friend's leg, reaches behind him, and practically shoves some case into Chanyeol’s face, successfully waking him up.

“Igotthisfrommybrotherisn’titgreat?!” The small one squeals when his friend finally pays attention to him.

“Baek, chill for a second and take whatever that is from my face. I can’t see shit from this close.” Chanyeol pushes Baekhyun away to sit straight on the bed.

He leans back on the headboard and takes from Baekhyun, what turns out to be a game case, with a game Chanyeol has definitely never played.

“Where did you get that? You’ve never told me about this game” He looks up at Baekhyun with confusion written on his face.

“My brother got this from his friend in college because, apparently, that friend’s girlfriend made him stop playing video games. Poor guy, I hope he can cope with that” Baekhyun shakes his head in a pity but quickly recovers and goes back to smiling. “But that asshole, my dear brother, totally didn’t want to let me play so I made a bet with him - you know well he never says no to a bet - that he wouldn’t be able to eat a whole extra big package of saltine crackers in one go. You could say he didn’t take the aftermath very well.” Baekhyun claps his hands, clearly amused.

Chanyeol looks at the other with his eyes wide open. He can’t decide whether to be proud that his friend will stop at nothing to get what he wants or rather scared one day he could be the one to end up like Baekhyun’s brother.

“Anyway, we have a new game to try, wanna get up already or you’d rather waste the entire day in bed?” Baekhyun says while climbing down from Chanyeol’s bed. It’s definitely too high for him to get down normally. “Oh, and your mum left you breakfast before she left for work. Does she have to work on Saturdays too?”

“She takes a few extra shifts to make up for the week we went away but it’ll be back to normal soon.” Chanyeol yawns widely as he stands from the bed, having no problems reaching the floor, since he’s so much taller than Baekhyun. “And my father is back in the city for work, so he won’t be here for 2-3 weeks as usual, I think.”

He then leaves the room to go downstairs with Baekhyun tailing right behind him as a good puppy he is. Chanyeol goes straight to the kitchen and sits by the table to eat the toasts with eggs and bacon waiting for him. Baekhyun sits in front of him and lays his head on his arms. Since he has already eaten before he came here, he has to endure the time Chanyeol eats his breakfast. The same Chanyeol who really takes his time now, seeing Baekhyun’s impatience.

“Yeol, if you eat any slower, I swear I’ll beat your no ass up.” He says warningly.

Chanyeol almost chokes on his food, trying not to laugh at that threat. He reaches over the table to ruffle Baekhyun's hair, getting his dirty look in exchange. _What's with the Park family constantly touching his hair?_

After a moment of comfortable silence, which Chanyeol used to finish his breakfast and put the plate into the sink, both of them get up and leave the kitchen, only to separate in the hallway. Chanyeol goes back upstairs to have a quick shower, and Baekhyun rushes to the game console in the living room to prepare the new game and turn the TV on. He then throws himself on the couch but squeals and quickly stands up again when he feels his phone poking him in the leg. Baekhyun takes it out from his pocket and lays on the coffee table in front of the couch. He sits again, this time slowly and more carefully, and stares at the ceiling waiting for his tall friend.

Just then he hears loud steps going down the stairs and a moment later comes Chanyeol with his hair still dripping after the shower. He plops on the empty spot on the couch and takes both of the controllers to finally start the game. As he gives one to Baekhyun, they hear the music and then the menu pops out. They choose the language, the difficulty (even though they are playing this game for the first time, they won't do anything as stupid as to start with the 'Beginner' mode - 'Master' it is) and their opponent's character's name. Baekhyun names Chanyeol’s 'real_giant_asshole', still holding the grudge for keeping him waiting at breakfast. Chanyeol though, goes for 'baekhyunee_the_midget_princess' and clicks ENTER before Baekhyun has the time to object, which causes him to pout and whine for the next 10 minutes, and Chanyeol to laugh his ass off for approximately the same amount of time.

It doesn't take them long to get a hold of the new game, being the experienced gamers they are, and in 20 minutes’ time they challenge each other as if they played it for at least a month.

After an hour of losing and winning, neither of them really being better than the other, they take a break and lean back on the couch, feeling quite content with spending the time productively. At least in their opinion. Priorities.

Suddenly, Chanyeol sits straight and excitedly turns to Baekhyun.

"I have an idea! Let's invite Kyungsoo over and show him this game! He will definitely like it." Chanyeol looks at his friend with a big grin on his face.

"Well..." It was fun when Kyungsoo was here a week ago and they really like spending time together at school, so it shouldn’t be a problem. It’s just that Baekhyun was really looking forward to playing with his best friend and wanted this game to be their thing.

However, looking into Chanyeol's expecting eyes he cannot say anything but, "Yeah, I think we could invite him" Baekhyun remembers he wanted the other two guys to be friendly with each other but it’s impossible to achieve if he doesn’t let Kyungsoo visit more than once. _Ah, fuck it_. “Okay, you’re right. Let’s call him.”

Chanyeol doesn’t hear the small hesitation at first in his voice and, as soon as those words are out in the open, he takes Baekhyun's phone from the coffee table and unlocks it - of course he knows the password; Baekhyun was really pissed when Chanyeol once stood behind him silently and looked over his shoulder while he was unlocking it, but since he has nothing to hide from his friend, he eventually let it go. Chanyeol finds Kyungsoo's number and dials it, putting the phone to his ear. Baekhyun looks at him silently as he hears the quiet ringing, and then there’s Kyungsoo’s voice “Hello?”

Chanyeol lights up at that.

“Hi Kyungsoo, it’s Chanyeol, Baek’s friend.”

There’s a small silence, as if the person on the other end still wasn’t sure who the caller is, but after a moment he says “Right, Chanyeol. Hi, what’s up?”

“Baekhyun and I’ve been wondering, whether you’d like to come over.” Baekhyun doesn’t comment on that, as he definitely wasn’t the one to come up with this idea. “Baek stole a game from his brother – “

“HEY, I DIDN’T!” Baekhyun is undeniably offended. _Why is Chanyeol saying such mean things when he knows well it’s not true?_

“– and we thought you might want to try it with us” He turns away from his small friend, listening to Kyungsoo speaking, as Baekhyun sits there with a big pout on his face.

“Okay, that’s cool, we’ll be waiting. Do you remember how to get here? Yeah? Okay, that’s awesome” Chanyeol grins. “See ya then.” He hangs up and gives the phone back to his friend, who puts it in his pocket. “Kyungsoo is free so he’ll be here in half an hour”

“Cool” Baekhyun says simply.

“Should we maybe clean up a bit?” Chanyeol thinks out loud.

Baekhyun looks around them and sees literally nothing out of place, all the surfaces without a trace of dust. Chanyeol’s mom has probably cleaned everything up just yesterday. Rising his eyebrows, he turns to look at his friend like he was an idiot.

“Why do you think we should to do that?” He asks, confusion not leaving his face.

“Because he might think something bad, seeing that we didn’t!” Chanyeol looks like he was about to panic and Baekhyun hits him on the head so he focuses.

“Get a grip. Your house looks better than mine ever had. Kyungsoo would probably think your family consists of clean fricks.” Baekhyun frowns at him. "And most of all, why do you care?"

"I don't." Chanyeol stands quickly and moves to the kitchen shouting "Come help me with the snacks and drinks!"

Baekhyun is still suspicious but follows his friend to help prepare everything.

When Kyungsoo comes, they decide who plays with him using ‘rock, paper, scissors’. Baekhyun is annoyed when his paper is cut with Chanyeol's scissors and he has to sit and wait for his turn. Kyungsoo doesn't really seem to care about his opponent, but Chanyeol is smiling widely as he grabs the controller. There's a quick break as they think of a name for Kyungsoo's character.

"Of course, it has to be 'Satansoo', what else?" Baekhyun says to nobody in particular, laying his head on the back of the couch and looking at the ceiling.

Kyungsoo doesn't seem to mind so ‘Satansoo’ it is.

Unsurprisingly, he wins the game quickly and Chanyeol has to give his controller to Baekhyun.

"I can almost feel my soon defeat." Baekhyun murmurs as he starts the game.

Kyungsoo smiles his evil smile hearing that and, just as Baekhyun predicted, in no time they see the text on the screen saying "Satansoo wins".

Even playing that game for the first time ever, Kyungsoo's still better than them.

"Kyungsoo 1, Chanbaek 0" Baekhyun leans back on the couch and throws his arms in the air. He’s tired and he’s not giving a shit anymore.

Chanyeol spits his drink out, when he hears his words. He turns to Baekhyun with questioning marks almost seen in his eyes. "Chanbaek?"

"Yeah, we're a team and we have to have a name." Baekhyun shrugs like it was so obvious. "Chan from Chanyeol and Baek from Baekhyun." He explains slowly to get through Chanyeol's confusion. He stops for a moment "It can also be a Baekyeol which is great, too, but I like the first one better. You're a giant, your name has to be at the beginning."

"So, if I was in a team with Kyungsoo, our name would be Chankyung?" Chanyeol smiles, starting to get the point.

"I think Chansoo sounds better" Kyungsoo points out.

"You're right." Chanyeol smiles even wider, seeing Kyungsoo's cooperation.

"Yeah, whatever." Baekhyun doesn't like this topic anymore since it doesn't refer to him. "Let's do something else because we have no chance against Kyungsoo in literally any video game." He stands up from his place on the couch and goes to the cupboard where he knows that some board games are stored.

Chanyeol joins him and after a while they stand up with Jenga box in Baekhyun's hands. When they show it to Kyungsoo, they can see some hesitancy in his eyes.

"I know this may sound weird, but I've never played Jenga"

Both Baekhyun and Chanyeol look at him with eyes wide open, "WHAT?"

"I just never really had the opportunity to do so." Kyungsoo just shrugs but he has a doubtful expression when he looks at the box, which is now on the floor where the two other guys are sitting.

"Great, so your opportunity came now" Baekhyun claps his hands and begins to take all of the bricks out.

"Come down here." Chanyeol pats the floor next to where he's sitting and looks at Kyungsoo with a smile. "It's fun, I swear."

Still a little uncertain, Kyungsoo joins them on the floor just as Baekhyun is done with adjusting the blocks.

“Okay, so since it’s Kyungsoo’s first time, he should start.” Chanyeol says, gesturing for him to choose. “Just carefully pull any brick out, so the other ones stay where they are, and put the one you’ve got on the top”

Kyungsoo thinks and after a moment he pulls one brick from the side. When the construction doesn’t collapse, he visibly relaxes and his face goes back to his normal blank expression. After him there’s Baekhyun and next Chanyeol, both of them going for the bricks in the middle of the levels.

The game goes from there. Kyungsoo always carefully chooses the brick to take, Baekhyun makes really risky moves, and Chanyeol is somewhere in the middle. The boys laugh that this game should end with someone else rather than Kyungsoo winning, since he had his fair share of winnings before.

When they have 6 extra levels built and it’s now Baekhyun’s turn, he decides to make the riskiest move of his and is really careful when pulling the block out. However, right that moment someone decides to call him on the phone. It scares Baekhyun out of his mind, which ends up with the whole tower collapsing because of his sudden move. It sends everyone laughing and then Baekhyun checks his phone. Seeing it’s his mom calling, he stands up and moves from the other two so he can hear her over their laughter.

When Baekhyun goes back to his friends, he tells them that his mom needs his help to find something, so he has to leave for a moment. He points to the tower, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo built while he was talking on the phone.

“Since I lost the game, you two should now determine who wins the first place. I’ll be back soon.” He waves at them and runs to his house.

For a moment after that they say nothing but Chanyeol, being a good host, tells Kyungsoo to start. They are quiet at the beginning, since most of the time it’s Baekhyun who initiates the conversations, but Chanyeol is still more lively than Kyungsoo, so he starts asking him questions about the school and stuff.

When Baekhyun quietly enters Chanyeol’s house, he peeks into the living room while taking his shoes off. He sees the two smiling (Chanyeol grinning widely and Kyungsoo with his small smile) and right that moment Kyungsoo accidentally hits the tower with his other hand. It comes tumbling on the floor and shocks the smaller one of the two. Chanyeol bursts out laughing at that and has to lay on the floor to calm down. When he sits back again, he tells Kyungsoo “It’s okay, it was your first time, so we can tell it was you who won” Chanyeol smiles his all-teeth smile.

Baekhyun is outraged hearing that and comes out of hiding, shocking the other two shitless. “Wow, how generous of you!” He folds his arms on his chest and pouts “You’ve never offered me anything like that, even when you knew it was my first time playing something!”

Baekhyun plops on the couch, right next to the spot where the other two are sitting, pout constant on his lips. Chanyeol is caught off guard, but quickly pulls himself together “It’s because you do the same to me!”

Baekhyun neither confirms nor denies, as he turns his head away from the boys on the floor. Chanyeol just laughs at his childish behavior. Without standing up, he reaches out to grab Baekhyun by the leg and pulls him down on the floor. The smaller one shrieks as he lands on both Chanyeol and Kyungsoo and everyone laughs, even the poker-faced Kyungsoo.

They move to the fluffy carpet by the couch and turn on some movie to chill out. They eat snacks and laugh at funny parts, sometimes having to pause because someone laughs so hard that the rest can’t focus on the movie. Still, by the end none of them can really tell what that movie was about, but it’s not something to cry about. Overall, everyone had fun and that’s what’s important.

  
  
  
  
  


The third time Kyungsoo comes over, on a Saturday a week later, all of them decided to do something else, rather than playing video games like the past couple of times. And, of course, it has nothing to do with Chanyeol’s console, which suddenly broke down for no reason. Today, they planned to cook dinner together.

The group of three agreed on having cannelloni, since it’s so easy to make, that even Baekhyun was allowed to help. The same Baekhyun, who once set the pancakes on fire, which smoked up Chanyeol’s entire house. There was also that time, when he tried to bake some surprise sugar cookies (at Chanyeol’s when he was out, because why not). He mixed up the proportions of salt and sugar AND (if that wasn’t enough) he forgot about the first batch sitting in the oven. If it wasn’t for Chanyeol who got home right the time to see smoke coming from the oven, his house would probably not be standing where it is right now.

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, who turned out to be an awesome cook himself, fry the meat and then they prepare the vegetables and spices for the tomato sauce. They give it all to Baekhyun who put it into the pot to let it cook for some time.

“Baek, stir it from time to time so it doesn’t burn.” Chanyeol notes while preparing for the next task, which is cutting mushrooms and parsley for the filling.

“Okay, will do.”

Chanyeol divides the ingredients in half between Kyungsoo and himself, so the cutting comes quicker. Baekhyun is a little sore that he didn't get his share. _It's not his fault he cuts himself even while spreading butter on the bread. He's trying!_

Pouting, he looks at the tomato sauce in the pot and moves to the table where the other two are standing. He sits on the chair and rests his head on his arms, which are folded on the table. Baekhyun looks at Kyungsoo and Chanyeol who are apparently trying to outrun each other with cutting the mushrooms, while still doing it better than Baekhyun would ever manage. He looks at the two laughing guys who have so much in common as for now, and feels a slight sting in his heart. But wait, why is that? He wanted them to befriend each other from the very beginning, so why is he suddenly dreading the thought of them doing such mundane task like cooking together, and having fun doing it?

Baekhyun is so lost in his thoughts, that he forgets he was assigned to stir the tomato sauce. It's only when Kyungsoo notices the delicate smoke coming from the pot and breaks their bubble of laughter that brings Baekhyun back to reality.

“Baekhyun you have to stir it!” Kyungsoo moves quickly towards the stove and reaches for the spoon, but it’s also when Baekhyun jumps from his chair to do the same. They crash into each other and one of them accidentally knocks the pot off the stove. It comes tumbling down to the floor, sending the tomato sauce literally everywhere. Most of it falls to the floor or on the cupboards but some of it also lands on Baekhyun and Kyungsoo.

After a moment of silence, Chanyeol runs to the stove to turn it off and then to check on the other two. Fortunately, nothing gets on their skin since Kyungsoo is wearing a long-sleeve shirt and Baekhyun has a thick hoodie with nothing underneath. The stains are enormous on their pieces of clothing, but most of the damage is done to the shiny white tiles of the kitchen floor.

Baekhyun stands still and watches as Chanyeol grabs the kitchen gloves to pick up the pot from the floor and check if there’s enough sauce to use it later. Baekhyun is still in a state of shock so he barely hears him saying “You had one simple task to do!” and sighing heavily. What brings him back to reality is Kyungsoo, who, apart from the big stains on his clothes, seems to be coping just fine. He pulls him by the arm to move Baekhyun further from the stove. Seeing him with a blank expression, Kyungsoo checks if Chanyeol might have missed any wounds, but after a moment he concludes his friend will be okay.

Chanyeol leaves the kitchen to find something to clean the floor and comes back a moment later holding a mop and a clean T-shirt, which he hands to Kyungsoo. “Baek, you left your hoodie here a few weeks ago, so you can wear it now. It is somewhere in my room. Go look for it.”

Baekhyun pouts, hearing that. _Why is Kyungsoo allowed to wear Chanyeol’s clothes and Baekhyun is left with no choice but to wear his own hoodie? Who’s the best friend here again?_

Baekhyun loves the oversized hoodies, however, the one he left at Chanyeol’s is anything but. It’s so tight it always feels like the second skin, which in that case is not a good thing. That’s the smallest one he owns and he’s not able to make the sweater paws he loves so much. Overall, Baekhyun never really liked that hoodie. When he thinks about it, he probably unconsciously left it here to get rid of it once and for all. Well, there goes his plan.

When Baekhyun goes upstairs to his friend’s room, he spots his hoodie almost immediately, since it’s green. Yep, even the color is weird. _Why has he kept it for so long?_ Baekhyun goes to the beanbag chair, where a lot of Chanyeol’s pieces of clothing are often threw, and retrieves the one that belongs to him. He looks at it in disgust. If it was gone, he’d be able to wear one of Chanyeol’s hoodies. He wants to be able to wear it, just like Kyungsoo, who was given a T-shirt without having to ask for it. If only he could do something about it.

Baekhyun looks up from the green clothing to the big window in the room. _But what if he can…?_

Quickly, before he realizes it’s a stupid idea he moves to the window and opens it. He looks at the garden two floors below and then at the green hoodie in his hand. At least it’ll blend into the grass for some time and then Baekhyun will be able to get it and destroy it for good. Without more thought, he throws it through the window as far as he can. Not looking where it lands, he shuts the window and goes for Chanyeol’s closet.

If it’s stupid but works, it’s not stupid.

When he emerges again, he holds a navy-blue hoodie with red SUPREME inscription, which is probably too big even for Chanyeol. Welp, it was so soft when Baekhyun touched it earlier that he couldn’t resist to wear that one. He lays it on his friend’s bed and quickly takes off his own sticky piece of clothing, careful not to get the tomato sauce on his hair and then on the bed. After that he puts on the navy-blue hoodie and leaves the room to find Chanyeol, who offered to wash their clothes in the washing machine.

Baekhyun finds him coming out of the bathroom. Chanyeol reaches to get the dirty hoodie from him but stills, seeing what his friend is wearing.

“I told you to take your hoodie, why are you wearing mine?”

“Couldn’t find it” Baekhyun lies, never looking him in the eyes as he shoves his hoodie into Chanyeol’s hands and passes him to go back downstairs.

In the kitchen, he sees Kyungsoo, who combines everything that was left of the sauce with the cut mushrooms and meat.

“I’m doing a quick mushroom spaghetti instead of the cannelloni, since most of the tomato sauce is gone” He explains, seeing Baekhyun’s confusion.

It makes the other boy feel guilty.

“I’m sorry, it was my fault.” Baekhyun says quietly, as he wraps his arms around himself. The oversized hoodie makes it look like he had a blanket on his shoulders. “I should have remembered to stir it.”

Kyungsoo looks at him as if he had two heads, however he can’t deny as he is about to because that moment is when Chanyeol walks into the kitchen saying “Yeah, you should have.”

Baekhyun visibly cowers at that. Kyungsoo, seeing that decides to butt in.

“Come on. Nothing bad happened.” He says with his normal blank expression.

“You and I worked really hard at that and he had the simplest task to do.” Chanyeol replies, while frustratingly running a hand through his hair.

Baekhyun frowns but says nothing. He cannot get one stupid thought out of his mind: _Why does it look like Chanyeol wanted to look good in front of Kyungsoo and Baekhyun was the one who screwed that up?_

“Chanyeol, it’s okay, everyone makes mistakes. What’s important is that nobody is hurt.” Kyungsoo moves to the stove to turn off the pasta he was cooking. He shows it to Chanyeol. “And spaghetti is also good, so that’s nothing to be mad about”

“If you think so.” Chanyeol has gloomy expression but moves to the cupboard to get the plates.

When they sit by the table to eat, there’s silence at first, and (surprisingly) it’s Kyungsoo to try and make a normal conversation. After a while he manages to make Chanyeol reply to his questions about games, cooking and so on. He seems to be over that irritated mood, so Kyungsoo moves on to the other one in the room. Baekhyun, however, is a little more difficult to get to because he looks like he’s lost in his thoughts, but after calling his name a few times, he is back to reality and behaves as if nothing happened, replying to his questions, and laughing like usually. Kyungsoo concludes the mission’s accomplished and returns to his food, letting Baekhyun take over the conversation.

\-----------------------------------

When they get out of the house he waves goodbye to Kyungsoo, as he runs to catch his bus, Chanyeol spots something weird in his garden.

“Baek, why is your hoodie laying on the bushes outside my house?” Chanyeol looks at his friend with stern, yet slightly amused look.

“Oh, look at that, there it was all this time! And I was so stupid as to search for it inside!” Baekhyun laughs nervously. “Okay, I think I’ll go home, bye!” He runs to his house as if someone or something was after him. Chanyeol’s hoodie is so big on him, covering more than half of his thighs, kind of restraining his moves, and the sleeves are way too long for Baekhyun and wave behind him comically. Chanyeol laughs at that view, as he gets the green piece of clothing from the garden and goes back home.

  
  
  
  
  


From that moment, Kyungsoo is a constant addition to their group of two. Almost every day Baekhyun and Kyungsoo run out of school right after the lessons to catch the earliest bus and head to Chanyeol’s. Their meetings consist mostly of playing video games (Baekhyun and Chanyeol learned quite a few tricks from Kyungsoo, so sometimes they even manage to win!), but there are moments when they are fed up with staring at the screen and decide to do something else. The three of them go to the mall nearby quite a few times, looking for games, playing games at the arcade, or doing things that don’t involve gaming.

Once they even went shopping for clothes – Baekhyun had finally got rid of the green hoodie he disliked so much and decided he needed a new one. Chanyeol asks why his navy-blue SUPREME hoodie is not enough of a replacement, since Baekhyun still didn’t give it back and Chanyeol stopped dreaming of ever wearing it again. However, his friend tells him that this hoodie is only for special occasions and he needs one for every-day use. Kyungsoo didn’t really say anything through the whole process, being rather a silent observer, sometimes nodding or giving thumbs up when Baekhyun needs his opinion.

After successful mission, all of them go to eat something. They go for Chinese food at the mall while Chanyeol and Kyungsoo talk about some Chinese dishes they cooked or plan to do so in the future. Baekhyun just sits there, silently eating his food and listening to the two, half of the time not knowing the meaning of some words they use. He is the first one to be done eating, since his friends are too busy talking to care about their food.

Baekhyun absent-mindedly plays with the things on his tray. Under some napkins, he spots a fortune cookie he wasn’t aware he ordered. _Or maybe everybody gets one. Whatever._ He unpacks it from a wrapper and breaks it in two to get to the small note inside. Baekhyun’s special quote for a day is: “Watch over what is rightfully yours, or you’ll see it being stolen by someone else”. Confused, Baekhyun looks down to the shopping bag with his new grey hoodie inside, and he turns to look around if someone was gonna steal it. Nobody seems to be worth suspecting, but he takes the bag from the floor and hugs it tightly, just in case. Just then Chanyeol and Kyungsoo finish their food and the three of them leave the mall. Baekhyun is constantly on the lookout for a potential thief, but when nothing bad happens, he relaxes, remembering that fortune cookies quotes are fake anyway. Calmer, he focuses on his friends and listens to Chanyeol’s story about his new classmate, who won some major dance competitions. After that Baekhyun forgets about the stupid cookie.

\-----------------------------------

From time to time Baekhyun feels a weird desire to spend some time alone with his best friend, just like it was before Kyungsoo joined them. Such thoughts come to him for example when he sees Chanyeol talking to Kyungsoo about some book the other recommended him. Chanyeol wasn’t really the type to read books, at least up until now. Yeah, he reads comics, but he always says he likes them because of the drawings. Of course, he is definitely better than Baekhyun who literally falls asleep at the very first sentence of any longer text, no matter how interesting everyone tells him it is, but it’s still unusual to see him with a book. That’s why Baekhyun is so shocked, hearing that Chanyeol has read an entire series of some fantasy book, Kyungsoo told him about. He feels left out when the two of them share their opinions about the storyline and characters. He’s aware that if he just read that book, he’d be able to understand what they are talking about and have his part in their conversation. However, it’s too much of a sacrifice and he doesn’t think he’d manage to do it, so for now, he’ll just be sitting and listening to his friends, trying to make any sense out of their discussions. And hoping Chanyeol will be back to normal soon.

\-----------------------------------

October comes and goes, and for Baekhyun it was full of fun and laughter but mixed with dread of having to share his best friend with someone else. Don’t get him wrong, he has nothing against Kyungsoo. He got to learn tricks from the video games master himself (though he would never refer to him like that being face to face) and they have great time, spending breaks together at school. The problem starts when they enter Chanyeol’s house and, unusually for Baekhyun, his best friend’s attention is divided in half between both of them.

However, lately even his ½ share would be enough, since Chanyeol went on a cooking spree with Kyungsoo, and, remembering his neighbor’s last attempt to help in the kitchen, he doesn’t allow him to touch literally anything. For Baekhyun it means sitting by the table and watching the other two cutting, frying, and laughing. Sometimes he tries to join in their conversations but most of the time they share their experience from the kitchen. Baekhyun’s all kitchen experience consists of things burning, blowing up or his body being hurt. Being totally self-aware, he would gladly tell all those stories to Kyungsoo to be included in their discussions but unfortunately, Chanyeol has already did so and Baekhyun was left with nothing.

There are times, when he gets tired of the of the clinging of the pots and words he doesn’t understand so he retreats to the living room to play some random game, which is not that fun when there’s nobody who pushes you to do better. Sometimes he goes to Chanyeol’s room and lays on his bed, looking at the posters and pictures on his walls. He thinks back to the times when there were only the two of them and Chanyeol had his whole attention on him. As for now, he probably hasn’t even noticed that Baekhyun is not sitting by the table anymore. He usually starts to look for him only when the food is ready and he sees that nobody is eating from the third plate set on the table. It hurts Baekhyun, that his best friend can so easily get him out of his mind. They’ve known each other for years, told each other their secrets. Baekhyun knows that his friend really misses his sister, who studies abroad, but he’d never show her that, because he doesn’t want her to worry. On the other hand, the smaller one told Chanyeol about his mom trying to divorce his father, who hasn’t really been around for a few years now. He told his friend how much it pains him, seeing his mother hurting because of someone who’s not worth her tears, who willingly left his wife and sons.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun have really strong bond, at least so the latter thought. Now he isn’t that sure anymore.

\-----------------------------------

The end of November is soon approaching, which leads to Baekhyun thinking about Chanyeol's birthday that’s coming up. Usually they spend their special days together, eating cake and doing something stupid, as to make the day worth remembering. Last year on Chanyeol’s birthday, they went to the mall without shoes. It might not seem weird enough at first, but it was really cold and rainy that day. To top it all off, at the end they had to make a trip to the hospital because Baekhyun accidentally stepped on a smashed glass bottle which got stuck on the bottom of his foot. They were laughing their asses off the whole time there and the nurses were debating, whether they needed also some mental help, apart from the physical one.

However, that year was when there were only the two of them. This time there was also Kyungsoo, who had to be considered. Kyungsoo, who is overall a really down to earth person, so he wouldn’t have agreed to walk outside barefoot in almost December cold weather. Baekhyun had to think of something crazy but not really if he wanted Kyungsoo to participate. After a lot of thinking, he decided to just find the most bubble wrap he could get and, together with Kyungsoo, wrap Chanyeol’s entire bedroom. Baekhyun felt off, doing the birthday crazy thing without the birthday boy himself. However, Chanyeol didn’t seem to sense any difference, when he came back from the last-minute shopping trip for the gathering in the evening. Baekhyun felt a little sting in his heart but brushed it off, seeing his friend laughing wholeheartedly.

For the birthday gathering at Chanyeol’s, Baekhyun had invited some of their mutual friends, like Junmyeon and Yifan, who turned out to be a couple now; who would have guessed? Definitely not Baekhyun, who has been pushing Junmyeon for a few years now to make the big first move, knowing Yifan was too scared of making a fool of himself and ruining his cool image in front of his crush, to do anything about that. And yeah, they know well that Baekhyun is their #1 shipper but they forgot to mention this small detail in every conversation they had for the last 3 months they have been dating. You can always count on your friends, my ass.

One of the other guests is Jongin, Chanyeol’s new classmate, who’s a dancing machine going under the name of Kai. Kai, who seems to have taken an immediate liking to Kyungsoo and tries to talk to him quite a few times. However, the smaller one, being shy and hesitant around new people, always retreats to the ones he knows well. Unfortunately (for Baekhyun), most of the times it brings Kyungsoo to him and Chanyeol standing with some people. But seeing Chanyeol’s smile every time the other guy joins them, Baekhyun feels bad, knowing that the little part in him wants the other small guy gone. _It’s Chanyeol’s birthday, for crying out loud!_ If he wants to spend time with Kyungsoo then Baekhyun has no right to complain about it. At least not today.

Looking at them now and seeing their smiling faces (Kyungsoo has started to smile more often lately), he leaves the group to look for someone else to talk to. When he enters the kitchen, he bumps into Junmyeon, who for once is alone with Yifan nowhere in sight.

“He’s in the bathroom.” Junmyeon is so nice as to inform him, seeing his friend scanning the room.

“Okay, that’s cool. Actually, I was looking for someone to spend time with and you are the perfect one for me” Baekhyun winks at him and laughs.

Junmyeon furrows his eyebrows, slightly confused about the situation, “Why are you not with Chanyeol? Usually you two are joined by the hip and ‘one cannot exist without the other’” Junmyeon is proud of his own joke, while Baekhyun just stares at him, totally unamused.

“He spends time with his other friends.” He just says, shrugging.

The older one goes back to being serious when he sees right through his friend’s fake indifference, “It was never a problem for you, though…” He trails off, as Baekhyun wraps his arms around himself ( _Why is it so chilly in here?_ ) and doesn’t meet his eyes. “Baek, what’s going on with you and Chanyeol?”

“Nothing, we’re good.” He smiles but this smile is also a fake one, Junmyeon concludes.

He starts to worry, because Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s friendship has always been something unwavering. When they all were in middle school, the two of them were the mood makers of their group, always plotting against their friends. Where Chanyeol goes, Baekhyun follows and the other way round. They were like the embodiment of the perfect friendship and everyone was jealous of what they had. Some things were just constant: the Earth is round, the Sun is shining and Baekhyun and Chanyeol are best friends forever. _So what’s going on now? Why is Baek acting like that?_

Junmyeon’s feelings went way past confusion - now he is simply scared. If a friendship strong like theirs can break up, his relationship with Yifan is definitely at stake. He loves the tall one too much to be okay with splitting, so he needs to help Baekhyun and get him and Chanyeol on the right track again. Only then would he feel at peace again. Junmyeon takes Baekhyun by the arm and goes to the door, taking their jackets on the way, and putting his shoes on, as he indicates the very confused Baekhyun to do the same. They put their jackets on and leave the house to sit on the porch a little further from the door.

Junmyeon turns to Baekhyun, who’s hugging his legs to keep himself warm, “Now please tell me everything.”

Baekhyun shakes his head, “I already told you that we’re good. There’s nothing to tell.” He is slightly annoyed by this interrogation.

“I know you’re good, otherwise you wouldn’t be here today” Junmyeon isn’t going to back out now. “I’m just saying that normally you’re much better than good. You’re great, awesome, fantastic.” He puts pressure on those words, needing Baekhyun to get his point.

The other one stays silent at that so Junmyeon tries to guess what the problem is about.

“Did you two have a fight?”

“No, we did not!” Baekhyun looks at him like he was an idiot. “We never argue.”

Junmyeon thinks about some other reason. When he has an idea, he looks up at frowning Baekhyun and decides to just go for it. “Does-” He starts carefully, “-it have anything to do with your new friend? Kyungsoo?”

Junmyeon watches Baekhyun closely so he doesn’t miss the sign of sadness mixed with jealousy that quickly comes through his face.

“Of course not. He’s a great friend. Why would he be a problem?” Baekhyun looks at his shoes, avoiding his friend’s eyes.

Junmyeon thinks back to the party that has been going on for a few hours now. Whenever he talked to the birthday guy, he was always standing with Kyungsoo and much more quiet than usual Baekhyun. It was like Kyungsoo has permanently joined their inseparable duo but it resulted in Baekhyun being pushed aside. Junmyeon would never think something like that could happen, knowing his younger friend’s personality, so seeing it with his own eyes is both shocking and sad.

“Baek, -” Junmyeon is really careful with his words. He doesn’t want to scare Baekhyun off, when he finally understands the seriousness of the situation, “-how long has Kyungsoo been coming here?”

“Since the beginning of the school year, so like, 3 months.” Baekhyun says, being a little absent minded, as he plays with his shoelace.

“Do you feel like Chanyeol has been spending too much time with him and neglecting you as a result?” Junmyeon asks gently.

Baekhyun shakes his head but again, it doesn’t look convincing. “It’s just a phase. We’re still best friends.”

Junmyeon doesn’t want to hurt him, but Baekhyun has to do something about the situation and denying won’t help him at all. Having that in mind, he takes big breath and quietly says, “Best friends don’t do that to each other. And if that was the case, he would be here already looking for you.”

He watches Baekhyun’s every expression so he notices the obvious pain in his eyes. This time, however, it doesn’t just disappear. Junmyeon knows he pointed out, what Baekhyun was trying not to think about. The younger’s lack of an answer tells everything Junmyeon has to know.

Suddenly, the door behind them opens. Baekhyun is too lost in his thoughts to notice it, but Junmyeon turns around and sees his boyfriend, who has probably been looking for him. Yifan furrows his brows, confused as to why they are sitting outside in the cold, at which the smaller one smiles reassuringly and indicates for him to go back inside. The tall one doesn’t look convinced, so Junmyeon mouths at him “I’ll be back soon”. Yifan looks at Baekhyun who is sitting in the same position since the beginning, hugging his legs and looking at the grass below them. He can sense something is off there and leaves them to go back inside, knowing that Junmyeon being Junmyeon – mothering all of his friends, will make it right.

The click of the door closing brings Baekhyun back to reality. He turns around, but seeing nobody he looks at Junmyeon. The other one can see hope in his eyes as he asks “Who was that?”

Junmyeon doesn’t want to sadden his friend but he can’t lie to him either.

“It was Yifan looking for me.”

He can see the light in his eyes disappearing and he goes back to looking at his shoes.

“Baek, -” Junmyeon starts after a moment of silence from the both sides, “- I think you have to talk to Chanyeol. You can’t just do nothing and hope it’ll be okay.”

Baekhyun visibly stiffens and shakes his head. “You’re wrong. I don’t have to talk to him about anything”, he says stubbornly, already getting up. “It’s gonna be back to normal soon.”

Junmyeon also stands up and watches as Baekhyun goes back inside. The older one closes his eyes and sighs. _Why does he feel like it’ll be even worse?_

  
  
  
  
  


After the party and his conversation with Junmyeon, Baekhyun is more determined to spend time alone with Chanyeol. However, it’s easier said than done, since Kyungsoo is always there. The first occasion happens almost a week after the party and Baekhyun is set to make the most out of it.

It's a lazy Sunday at the beginning of December. The weather doesn’t usually attract to go outside at this time of the year, but even if the Sun was shining brightly, Chanyeol and Baekhyun would rather spend the day sitting on the couch and crashing each other in one game after another.

Chanyeol didn’t say why Kyungsoo is absent and Baekhyun isn’t going to ask, assuming he has some important matters to attend to. Instead, he tells Chanyeol some funny stories from school and they laugh just like in the past. Baekhyun can hardly contain his happiness. Every time Chanyeol laughs at something he says or asks him questions about the story, he feels like crying tears of joy. He wasn’t aware he missed Chanyeol’s attention that much, until he got it back.

_Junmyeon was so wrong; now he has Chanyeol back and everything will be okay._

Chanyeol is in the middle of a one-player game, and Baekhyun sits next to him on the couch, waiting patiently for his turn. Suddenly, the doorbell rings.

"It's Kyungsoo." Chanyeol says, his eyes still on the screen.

Baekhyun slowly turns to look at him in shock.

"You invited Kyungsoo. And forgot to tell me." Those questions come out more like statements. The boy can't believe what he heard, feeling all the happiness leaving him right that second and that makes him wanna cry.

Chanyeol nods his head, "Yeah, go let him in, will you. I'm about to win this duel." He rotates the controller, as if it was a real steering wheel.

Baekhyun finds the strength to get up and goes to the door, he opens it to see his classmate with his hand near the doorbell to ring again.

"Hey" Kyungsoo says surprised, "I didn't know you'd be here"

 _Thank you so much, the feeling is mutual_ , Baekhyun struggles not to say it out loud.

"Come on in, Chanyeol is in the living room" He opens the door wider to make space for the other one to enter.

Kyungsoo takes his shoes off and goes straight to where he hears Chanyeol swearing, since apparently, he wasn't as close to winning as he thought. Baekhyun follows him after a moment, only to find his best friend sitting exactly where he left him, sprawled on the couch, and taking too much of space, but the seat next to him (which has belonged to Baekhyun till just a moment ago) is now occupied by the newcomer. He feels the bitterness as he looks at them sitting next to each other and Chanyeol giving Kyungsoo the controller, when it was supposed to be Baekhyun’s turn after the tall one finishes playing.

The emotional roller coaster makes him really tired and ready to cry right that moment, so he turns to go to the kitchen. He hears Chanyeol shouting “Baek, bring Soo a glass!” and laughing a second after, as Kyungsoo has probably punched or kicked him for calling him ‘Soo’.

Baekhyun reaches the kitchen and crouches by the wall. He takes deep breaths and tries to blink away the oncoming wetness in his eyes. When it doesn’t help much, he digs his nails in his thighs, and fortunately, the sudden physical pain is able to overcome the one in his heart.

After a moment, feeling slightly better, Baekhyun goes to the cupboard to get a glass for himself, and for Kyungsoo too, since he’s not that rude to just ignore his friends. He fills one with cold water and drinks it slowly, taking steady breaths between his sips. Then he puts the glass in the sink, takes the other one and returns to the living room. He puts it down on the coffee table and sits on the floor by Chanyeol’s legs. His friends don’t notice his slightly red eyes and that moment he is grateful that they tend to ignore him lately. But it’s a one-time thing only.

When Kyungsoo wins his game, he gives the controller back to Chanyeol, who excitedly rushes to click the ‘new game’. That makes Baekhyun open his mouth in shock. _They have simply forgotten about him._ The small guy waits a moment to see, if maybe the other two notice their mistake, but they seem to be too into the game.

Being forgotten doesn’t help Baekhyun’s already hurting heart at all.

“You know what, I think I’ll go home.” He gets up from the floor and glances at Chanyeol for any sign of acknowledgment, but he sees none. It’s Kyungsoo who quickly looks up from the screen saying “See you at school” and returns to look to the game.

Baekhyun leaves the room and, as he’s closing the front door, he wonders how long it will take Chanyeol to notice his absence.

For the first time ever, he leaves Chanyeol’s home crying.

  
  
  
  
  


From that moment onwards, Baekhyun tries not to spend that much time at Chanyeol’s. He doesn’t want to stop coming permanently, because he misses his best friend too much to do that, but seeing him so happy when he plays and laughs with someone else is just too painful for Baekhyun to endure. He goes there with Kyungsoo every day as usual, and after a few hours, he thinks of some excuse to go home. Baekhyun can’t count how many times he told them his mom needs his help, while knowing well she hasn’t even came back from work yet. What’s worse, is that Chanyeol used to know that too, but now he just nods and doesn’t call him out on the obvious lie.

Baekhyun always leaves with his heart being hurt more and more every day. That’s why not long after, he starts to make excuses to part with Kyungsoo in front of Chanyeol’s house and go to his own instead. He always says to Kyungsoo to tell Chanyeol ‘hi’ from him, and adds random pretext, like that he’s tired and wants to go to sleep.

Baekhyun finds it problematic, when he realizes, he has nothing interesting to do back home. Normally, he stays at Chanyeol’s for the whole day and they don’t need to do anything special to have fun, so now he’s found himself lost. Baekhyun comes through a lot of games on his phone, but those are fun only for a moment. He thinks of maybe actually helping his mom with the housework, but quickly realizes, he has no knowledge of that and could probably end up with the plants being overwatered or the washing machine bursting into flames. He doesn’t even consider cooking, because burning his house and having to live with Chanyeol is not something he dreams of right now.

In the desperate need to do something, Baekhyun starts cleaning up his room. The various layers of clothes, plates, cutlery, textbooks, and notebooks don’t look tempting, but he is determined to be productive today.

When he’s going through the first layer, his phone buzzes with a text, surprisingly from Chanyeol.

 

YEOL

_Aren’t you gonna come over?_

 

 _Wow, for once Chanyeol noticed his absence_ , Baekhyun thinks bitterly, although some part of him is happy about the unexpected attention. However, he has been fooled once when he got his hopes up, only to have it crushed not long after. He won’t give Chanyeol another chance to hurt him like that.

 

BAEK

_Nah, I’m cleaning up my room today_

 

He should have thought that excuse over once more, though, before sending the text. Immediately, his phone buzzes again, this time a few times in a row, as Chanyeol is the type to spam people with numerous messages, instead of one longer.

 

YEOL

_What the fuck, Baek_

_Just leave it_

_That’s impossible_

_You haven’t cleaned it up for a long time_

BAEK

_Then quit spamming me and let me work_

 

Angered, he throws his phone on the bed and hides his face in his hands, releasing a muffled scream of frustration. Why does Chanyeol act so hot and cold? It confuses Baekhyun, who wants his best friend back, but at the same time, he doesn’t want to be disappointed again. He frustratingly moves his fingers through his hair and takes a deep breath.

 _You’re a strong independent Baekhyun who doesn't need no friend, especially not one, who cares more about someone he’s just met rather than you_ , he repeats those words in his head, over and over again, till he finally believes it.

After that, he plays some music, loud enough to overcome the dark thoughts in his head, and goes back to all the mess on the floor. Fortunately, the next day is Saturday, because all the frustration Baekhyun has been accumulating for the past couple of weeks, has made him stay up for the whole night and tidy up every part of his room. Baekhyun is so tired, both mentally and physically, that he collapses on the bed at sunrise and dozes off immediately.

\-----------------------------------

His new habit of excusing himself from every meeting at Chanyeol’s goes on for some time until his streak is broken by an unusually persistent Kyungsoo, who practically drags him from the school to Chanyeol’s house. On the way there, he tells Baekhyun about a new version of a game that they like, that Kyungsoo got from his parents just the day before.

When they enter the hallway of Chanyeol’s house, which Baekhyun is more familiar with, than with the one in his own house, he sees the giant himself coming from the living room. Chanyeol seems to be really happy to see him, and hugs him tightly because of that. Baekhyun’s heart skips a beat and he has a weird urge to bury his face in the taller one’s chest, but he restrains himself, as it would be weird to do such a thing with his friend. When he’s let go, the three of them move to the couch and set Kyungsoo’s new game in the console. Since Baekhyun hasn’t played with them for some time, they graciously let him play the first round, and decide between themselves, who will play with him. The winner is Kyungsoo and the two smallest guys in the room start to play their round. After a while of passive watching the monsters and blood at every part of the screen, Chanyeol goes to the kitchen to fetch something to snack on.

Unsurprisingly, Kyungsoo is the one to win the round, but Baekhyun really doesn’t mind. He warms to the thought of maybe coming back, since the other two don’t ignore him anymore.

Sensing the end of the game, Chanyeol’s head pops up into the living room. “Kyungsoo, I tried the last recipe you gave me. Come try it and say if it’s any good?”

Said guy gets up and follows Chanyeol to the kitchen, leaving a shocked Baekhyun behind in the room. He looks down on the controller in his hands, and then slowly puts it down on the coffee table. _Just when he was starting to think, it was gonna be okay again._

The two of them don’t return for almost ten minutes, so Baekhyun stands up and quietly goes to the kitchen to search for them. He sees Chanyeol standing by the stove and stirring something in the pot, while Kyungsoo chops the vegetables on the table top next to the giant. They talk lightly about random things, and don’t seem to be concerned about leaving their friend alone. Baekhyun feels a lump forming in his throat and quickly tries to swallow it as he enters the kitchen. The two of the others turn to him with slightly shocked matching expressions, and Baekhyun isn’t even surprised he had been forgotten once again.

“I feel a little weird and I think I might be getting sick, -” Baekhyun fakes the cough, and it, both with his voice, sounds convincing, thanks to the lump blocking his throat “-so I’ll go home”

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo are a little dumbfounded at first, but the giant shakes it off quickly and moves to Baekhyun.

“Do you have a fever? Let me check-”, he reaches for Baekhyun’s forehead with his hand, but the smaller one backs away quickly.

“It’s okay. I’ll just go now. Bye.” Baekhyun turns on his heel, puts on his shoes and jacket as fast as he can and leaves.

When he crosses the street, he dials the number on his phone, just as the tears start flowing down his face.

The person on the other side answers when Baekhyun is already at his place, currently running up the stairs to his room. He hears Yifan’s muffled laugh in the background, as Junmyeon says lightly “Hi, Baek, what’s up?”

Baekhyun lays on his bed and takes a deep breath, to stop crying and be able to speak, but with no results. Junmyeon has probably heard his quiet sobbing, because in no time he turns to being serious, “Baek, what’s going on? Why are you crying?”, he asks, leaving his bedroom, where Yifan is sprawled on his bed.

The younger one is only able to whisper an “I can’t do this anymore, Myeon” and cover his mouth with his hand, not to let out the loud cries that are trying to come out.

Junmyeon sounds worried, “Baek, please, tell me what happened” and, after a moment of silence, interrupted only by the sobbing boy, he asks gently, “Does it have anything to do with Chanyeol?”

The louder cry tells him, that the problem is, indeed, concerning the dumb giant. Junmyeon asks another question, “Did he say something that made you cry? Was he mean to you?”

Baekhyun seems to be slowly getting himself together, enough to answer his questions with the stream of words, that Junmyeon struggles to make sense out of. “No, he wasn’t mean, he was really kind and hugged me because I haven’t been coming over for a while, and they let me play the game first”, that moment, he hesitates to continue.

Junmyeon hears him sobbing some more, so he softly asks him, “And what happened next?”

Baekhyun doesn’t say anything for a moment but, eventually, he mumbles “And then he forgot about me and started cooking with Kyungsoo”, his voice has been getting quieter with every word, so by the end Junmyeon is really struggling to hear him. However, catching Kyungsoo’s name, he finally gets the point of the situation.

Junmyeon sighs, “Baek, -”, he doesn’t really know what to say to help his friend. The problem is getting out of control, if it made Baekhyun so vulnerable, as to make the constantly happy boy cry.

When the older one says nothing, Baekhyun adds even more, “He was really happy, when he saw me, and I thought everything would be the same, as it was in the past”, he is silent for a moment and Junmyeon happily notices that his sobs disappeared, instead he could hear the sadness and fatigue in the other’s voice. “And when he hugged me, -” Baekhyun audibly swallows, “- I felt so safe, like nothing could ever break us apart. I didn’t want it to ever stop.”, he adds the last part softly, as if he was thinking about that situation again.

There’s a moment of silence, which both Junmyeon and Baekhyun use to think about the last said words.

“Junmyeon, -”, before the older one has the chance to answer, Baekhyun interrupts him with wavering but confident voice, “-I love him. I love Chanyeol.”, he says it with so much certainty, but there’s also pain in his voice.

Junmyeon opens his mouth in shock at his words. He doesn’t know how to comment on that revelation, but it’s not like he hasn’t been suspecting, that one day, the two of them might turn into being more than friends.

“That’s wonderful, Baek.” Junmyeon smiles, although the other one can’t see him. “I’m really proud of you that you figured it out.”

Baekhyun laughs bitterly at his friend’s words, “Yeah, thanks, however, it’s everything but wonderful. If anything, it makes the situation even more painful for me, since he prefers to spend time with Kyungsoo.”, Baekhyun’s sigh is a little muffled as he hid his face in his pillow.

Junmyeon gets the seriousness of the situation now, so the only thing he can tell his friend is “We’ll figure this out, Baek. It’s gonna be okay. It has to be.”

“Yeah” Baekhyun is lost in his thoughts, but he manages to get out of it for a moment to end the conversation, “Thanks anyway, Myeon. I needed someone to listen.”

“Anytime. Don’t stress too much about it, though. Maybe the problem will resolve on its own.” Junmyeon offers him a slight glimmer of hope.

After that, Baekhyun hangs up and turns on the bed to lay on his back. He looks up at the ceiling and wonders, how he even got himself into this mess. He gets now that all the negative emotions towards Kyungsoo were caused by jealousy. Unfortunately, Baekhyun didn’t realize that he wasn’t ready to share Chanyeol with anyone until it was too late and he had already introduced Kyungsoo to him.

That moment he remembers the stupid fortune cookie he had long time ago. It said something about watching over what belongs to him, because it might be stolen by someone else. It wasn’t about his precious new hoodie, like he stupidly thought. It referred to Chanyeol, who Baekhyun has almost served on a silver platter for Kyungsoo. _Can Baekhyun be even more stupid?_

Of course, Chanyeol had other friends since they go to different schools and all, but to Baekhyun it has never made any difference. He still used to be the only friend he invited over and spent his free time with. Now things have changed and he can’t blame anybody but himself.

  
  
  
  
  


A few days have gone by, and Baekhyun avoids all contact with Chanyeol. He also escapes Kyungsoo’s every attempt to talk at school, because he knows that Kyungsoo is able to bring him to Chanyeol, not caring about his lack of consent. Baekhyun changes his partners on all of the subjects, since he was usually paired up with Kyungsoo during the beginning of the school year.

Baekhyun even goes as far as to avoid riding the same bus as Kyungsoo, when they’re both heading to Chanyeol’s neighborhood. He prefers to take the earlier bus, so he always runs to the bus stop right after the bell rings.

Almost a week after Baekhyun has last seen Chanyeol, he reaches his house after a really stressful school day (mostly because avoiding someone is just so tiring) and has his hand almost on the door knob, when the door opens from the inside. He has to get out of the way of his hurricane of a mother, who stops midway to the car when she sees her son.

"Baekhyun, honey, there are some leftovers from yesterday waiting for you in the kitchen so heat it up now, okay dear? I was just called in for work but I'll try to make it quick and then I'll cook something delicious. Love you!" She pats him on the cheek and rushes to the driveway.

However, when Baekhyun enters his house and is about to close the door he hears his mom’s "Oh, and by the way, Chanyeol’s waiting for you in your room!" after which she drives away.

The boy stays still in the hallway, letting the door close, and tries to process the news. _Chanyeol's here!_ He feels excitement, but on the other hand, he doesn't want to see him now. He wants to have the confrontation when he personally decides it's the right time. Baekhyun concludes it's not too late to turn around and leave, and so he tries, but then he hears an angry voice from the stairs and he knows he's busted.

"Byun Baekhyun, don't you dare go any further"

Baekhyun closes his eyes and tries not to panic. He hears footsteps coming down the stairs but refuses to face Chanyeol, as he stops behind him.

“Why are you avoiding me?”

Baekhyun lets out a shaky breath that he was holding.

“I am not,” He says trying to put some strength into his words but it comes rather weakly.

“Yeah, right.” Chanyeol snorts. “If I didn’t stop you right now, you would have fled from your own house, having heard I’m here. If that’s not avoiding, then I don’t know what is.” He walks around Baekhyun and stands right in front of him but the smaller one keeps his head down.

“It’s just that I remembered I have to buy myself something for dinner." Baekhyun looks anywhere but Chanyeol's eyes. He plays with the straps of the heavy backpack, he is still wearing, and decides to take it off now, throwing it on the floor. The situation is rather serious so he needs all the strength he can get.

“That’s another bullshit lie, your mum left you food, I heard that. Byun Baekhyun, stop lying to me!” Chanyeol shouts, visibly distressed by the conversation.

He normally never calls the smaller one by his full name; now that he does, Baekhyun knows that shit has gotten serious. He shivers at that thought, since it’s also the first time ever that Chanyeol is truly upset with him.

After a moment of silence, Chanyeol takes a deep breath to control his anger, “Okay, let’s start somewhere else,” He tries to find Baekhyun’s eyes but the smaller one persistently looks down to the floor. “Did I do anything to scare you off?”

Baekhyun says nothing, but wonders, _why do people always try to approach him like they were playing 20 Questions._

Chanyeol takes his silence as a yes, and furrows his brows, trying to think of anything that would have upset Baekhyun that much. When he’s still clueless, he tries to go back to the questioning, “Was it just a one-time thing or did I do it often?”, however, once again he gets no verbal answer.

“Baek, please, I’m really trying here” Chanyeol tries to reach for his hand, but Baekhyun is faster and hides both of his arms behind him. The giant wipes his face in frustration and lets out an exasperated ‘AAAGH’, before he shouts “Just say something!” but he gets nothing from the small one.

Chanyeol’s anger comes back and he feels like he’s boiling inside, “Baek, would you mind telling me literally ANYTHING about what I did wrong!?” He’s furious, because right now Baekhyun is just being a little shit. “How can I possibly fix the situation here, if you don’t tell me, what’s wrong?!”

The small guy visibly tenses, as he doesn’t like being shouted at. It makes Chanyeol feel a little guilty, but that’s a problem for another time. Silence falls between them once again and after a moment Chanyeol feels like punching the wall. He stops himself in his tracks, however, when Baekhyun quietly says, “You can’t.”

Chanyeol quickly moves closer and leans towards his friend to hear that again. “What did you say?”

Now it’s Baekhyun’s turn to get angry, as he suddenly has his head up and looks Chanyeol in the eyes, shouting, “Some things just can’t be fixed!”

The giant looks at Baekhyun closely and notices the obvious hurt in his eyes. Chanyeol’s really dumbfounded, since he still has no idea what’s even going on here, but the anger eating him from inside makes him shout back at Baekhyun, “Then tell me why the hell not!”

Baekhyun’s stare hardens, he starts slowly, “Shouldn’t it be obvious?”

Chanyeol runs a frustrated hand through his hair, “No, Baekhyun it’s not. I’m not a mind reader, you can’t just expect me to know why you’re mad at me, or why you’ve been so distant with me.”

Baekhyun almost scoffs at that, “Maybe if you hadn’t been spending so much time with Kyungsoo, you’d realize!”

Chanyeol becomes even more confused at his statement, “Kyungsoo? What does he have anything to do with this?”

Baekhyun can almost cry at the embodiment of ignorance that is Park Chanyeol, “You know what? Nevermind. Like I said, some things just can’t be fixed.”

Baekhyun was just about to ask Chanyeol to leave when Chanyeol speaks up again, “Do you... Do you like Kyungsoo? Is that it?”

That's the moment Baekhyun snaps.

"Are you really that dense? It’s because I love **you** , okay?! I’M. IN LOVE. WITH YOU!" He takes a deep breath and wipes his face in frustration, only to realize he started crying at some point. He looks down on Chanyeol’s chest, being unable to look him in the eyes. The words have been said and there's no going back so he might as well go even further. He sighs, suddenly feeling the anger leaving him, and instead he’s just tired and dispirited and wraps his arms around himself tightly, but it doesn't make the tears stop flowing. "I'm in love with you, Yeol. Not as a friend or even best friend which I know is what you think of me.”

Baekhyun’s voice comes out rather quietly, but nobody can blame him. He feared this would happen and now it’s the reality, “And the problem here is not that you don’t feel the same about me, because I can live with that. It’s that you decide to spend most of your time with someone you barely know, like I mean nothing to you. Like I wasn’t your best friend.” Baekhyun tries to swallow the lump in his throat to be able to continue. “You ignore me all the time when I’m near you and barely notice when I leave. How do you think that feels?” Baekhyun takes a deep breath, as more tears come down his face, “I just want you back." His voice breaks at the last sentence. He has to close his eyes tightly and dig his nails in his hands to prevent the sobs that are trying to come out.

There's silence after his words and Baekhyun risks looking up at Chanyeol. The tall one is… Well, ‘shocked’ would be an understatement. He is stunned with his big eyes bigger than ever and mouth opened as he was about to say something but forgot what it was.

Baekhyun takes all of that in and sighs heavily, having lost the hope. He wipes his cheeks with the back of his hand and leans back on the wall right behind him. He then slides down to the floor, till he’s sitting with his legs bent, as he hugs them tightly. Baekhyun hides his face in his knees to get away from the oncoming sadness. He thinks over everything that he just said and curses himself for very likely destroying their friendship. _If he had just kept his mouth shut, they wouldn’t be in this situation right now._

Baekhyun is too lost in his thoughts to notice Chanyeol approaching after a moment and kneeling in front of him. The taller one reaches out to gently stroke his cheek, that is now colored a bright red and wet from crying a little while earlier. Feeling a light touch on his face, Baekhyun has his head up in a second and looks astonished at the guy in front of him.

Chanyeol smiles delicately, seeing this pure beauty that is Byun Baekhyun in front of him, and cups the other’s small face in his big hands. When the tears start to fall again from Baekhyun’s eyes, Chanyeol wipes them from his cheeks with his thumbs. Not a second later, he leans towards the small boy and kisses him.

Baekhyun is shocked at first, but feeling Chanyeol’s soft lips moving on his own ones, he closes his eyes and melts into the kiss. He’s overwhelmed, feeling the gentleness and passion coming from the way Chanyeol is kissing him. Immediately, Baekhyun reaches up to wrap his arms tightly around the giant’s neck, unwilling to ever let him go again.

However, after a while he is forced to, since his body is screaming for the oxygen. Chanyeol rests his forehead on Baekhyun’s and looks him in the eyes, “Turns out that I love you too. It just took me a little longer and a small puppylike boy to shout at me to realize that.”, he smiles his all-teeth smile, that Baekhyun loves so much, and all of his troubles leave right that moment. Chanyeol leans down to catch his lips again and this time Baekhyun is ready to respond, putting all the emotions that he has been bottling up for the past couple of months into that kiss, whether he was aware of that or not.

This position gets uncomfortable really soon, so they move to Baekhyun’s bedroom upstairs. The small boy is reluctant to let go of the other’s hand on the way there, and turns to stare at him in awe every now and then. He still doesn’t understand how they got to this point. But if Chanyeol is gonna smile so happily at him every time their eyes meet, Baekhyun doesn’t need to know the reason.

They lean back on the headrest of Baekhyun’s bed and Chanyeol hugs Baekhyun tightly, having his chin on the top of the other’s head.

“You know,” Chanyeol starts, looking around the room, “I actually didn’t believe you, when you texted about cleaning up your bedroom.” He laughs when Baekhyun looks up and furrows his brows at him. “I’m sorry, but your room has always been a mess, ever since I remember! You can’t blame me for doubting!”

Baekhyun rests his head again on Chanyeol’s chest, and thinks back to that day. “I was really frustrated then, since you were always with Kyungsoo and I was bored to death, being here for the whole day.” He shrugs, not wanting to think about that dark times ever again.

Chanyeol is quiet for a while and he seems to be thinking really hard about something. Finally, he sighs and speaks, “Baek, look at me.” When the smaller one obediently looks up to meet Chanyeol’s eyes, he continues, “You have no idea, how sorry I am for those couple of months. I promise, I wasn’t doing it on purpose, I would never want to hurt you.” He puts pressure on his words, looking Baekhyun in the eyes to show him that he means that. Chanyeol takes Baekhyun’s hand from his lap and intertwines their fingers. “I don’t really know, why I was doing this, I guess Kyungsoo was interesting to me because he was new. I like the guy but it was like he was a new shiny toy, you know?” Chanyeol reaches up with his other hand to brush away the hair on Baekhyun’s forehead and his hand lingers on the smaller one’s cheek. He then realizes something and Baekhyun notices fear in his eyes as Chanyeol starts to beg him, “Please, don’t ever tell him I said that. He’ll kill me.”

Baekhyun laughs wholeheartedly, “Yeah, that’s actually possible, since he’s ‘Satansoo’ for a reason”, at which Chanyeol groans, already visualizing his death.

“But don’t worry, I won’t use it against you.” Baekhyun then thinks about something. His eyes sparkle, when he separates from now clueless Chanyeol, but that puzzled expression changes quickly into a big smile, when Baekhyun climbs on top of his lap, straddling him, and wraps his arms around Chanyeol’s neck. Their eyes meet and the smaller one says playfully, “At least as long as you’re my perfect boyfriend, who never forgets about me and doesn’t leave me for anybody else.”

Chanyeol grins at him and leans in to firmly kiss his now boyfriend. He stops after a second and smiles as he whispers against Baekhyun’s lips, “I guarantee you, that I love my boyfriend too much to do this to him ever again. Tell him that, please.”, having said that, he goes back to kissing the giggling Baekhyun, who’s now the one to pull away with a big smile.

“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear that”

  
  


_fin_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**EPILOGUE**

Chanyeol wakes up to the sound of his phone ringing. He reaches to take it from the coffee table, careful not to move too rapidly, since he doesn’t want to wake up Baekhyun who’s sleeping peacefully on top of him. He brings the phone up to his face and sees it's Kyungsoo, who's calling. Chanyeol quickly rejects the call and rushes to write him a text message, telling him to just come in when he gets here and to be really quiet then. Kyungsoo replies with simple ‘OK’, and Chanyeol locks his phone and puts it back on the coffee table.

He looks down at his boyfriend, whose head lays on the left side of his chest, right above his heart. His heartbeat always lulls the small one to sleep, and being really tired today, he was out as soon as he put his head on his chest, couple of hours earlier. Chanyeol gently runs his fingers through Baekhyun’s hair a few times and then leaves his hand there to cup Baekhyun’s cheek, while the other hand hugs him tightly around his back. He wonders, _what great things he did in his past life to deserve someone so adorable._

He hears the front door opening and Chanyeol looks up to the entrance of the living room, leaving his hands protectively on Baekhyun’s body. He sees Kyungsoo and Kai entering the room. Jongin is the newest addition to their group, but not really since he’s with them for almost two months now. They invited him to the group a little after Baekhyun and Chanyeol started dating, since they didn’t want Kyungsoo to feel like a third wheel. They were aware of Jongin’s crush on their friend, so it was actually killing two birds with one stone. They kind of hoped that one day they’d be two couples spending time together.

“I found him at the doorstep and decided to collect him before he freezes to death.” Kyungsoo says quietly, considering the sleeping Baekhyun, which is unusually kind of him.

Kyungsoo’s voice might be indifferent, but his actions are anything but, since at the beginning, he couldn’t care less what happens with the ‘annoying piece of shit’ as he charmingly called Jongin. Chanyeol is really happy that he starts to warm up to the dancer, who’s head over heels with Kyungsoo from the moment he saw him at his birthday party.

Said person moves to the couch and looks at the sleeping one in Chanyeol’s arms, “Why is he sleeping now? We were supposed to go to the arcade.” Jongin whispers, but even then, the other two awake can hear whining in his voice.

Chanyeol wraps both of his hands around Baekhyun’s back and puts his lips on the smaller one’s forehead, “He is getting a cold, I think, and he didn’t sleep well last night. It’s better if we stay in today”, seeing Jongin’s famous pout forming on his face, he adds “I meant ‘we’ as Baekhyun and I. You two can still go.”

Jongin’s face lights instantly and he turns excitedly to Kyungsoo, “Come on, Soo! Let’s go to the arcade.”

Chanyeol can almost see Kyungsoo putting Kai in a headlock or something similar, knowing well he doesn’t like being called ‘Soo’. But surprisingly, he does nothing like that. Instead, he just shrugs, saying “Yeah, we can go there.”

Chanyeol is sure he’s dreaming, when he sees grinning Jongin, who waves a quick goodbye to him, as he runs to put on his shoes, and Kyungsoo, saying “See you tomorrow” and following him to the door.

He can still hear them, when Kyungsoo adds “But you’re paying” and Jongin replies with a happy, “No problem! It’s a date then!”

Chanyeol almost dies right there, hearing Kyungsoo’s “Yeah, whatever” before the door closes.

However, they close it a little too loudly and the sound wakes Baekhyun up. His eyes meet Chanyeol’s when he looks up, a little confused since he’s still half-asleep.

“Hi there, how did you sleep?” the tall one smiles lightly at his cute boyfriend, who is currently rubbing his eyes.

“Really well, but I’d happily sleep a little longer.”

“Kyungsoo and Jongin went for a date so there’s nothing else stopping you.” Chanyeol tempts him.

His words, though, have an opposite effect as Baekhyun sits up, putting his hand on Chanyeol’s chest for support. He’s definitely awake now and looks at his boyfriend with shock in his eyes, “Are you joking?”

Chanyeol shakes his head and grins, “I couldn’t believe the situation either, and I was awake when they were leaving.” He’s still in awe, as he says, “Soon there’ll be a Kaisoo couple against Chanbaek in the multiplayer games.”

Baekhyun laughs and stands up from the couch. He takes Chanyeol by his hand and helps him get up too. The taller one is not surprised anymore when he lets go of his hand and instead, grabs the hem of his shirt.

Chanyeol isn’t sure why, but Baekhyun is always clingy towards him, not that he minds. He suspects, it could have something to do with the times he was unintentionally ignoring him, and now his boyfriend unconsciously wants to remind him of his presence.

They go to the kitchen to fetch some snacks and go back to the living room to play some games together, just like the old times. What has changed is that this time Baekhyun sits on Chanyeol’s lap, and the taller one has his arms around his boyfriend’s waist, to be able to use the controller.

After all, they’re still the best of friends, crushing each other in random video games. Just with more kissing.


End file.
